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Animal Farm and The Russian Revolution Minor characters and events of the novel Animal Farm symbolize things that are related to the history of Russia. Animal Farm is a story on Stalinism and the Russian Revolution. The characters in Animal Farm all have a part in the Soviet Union meaning the Russian Revolution. The similarities of Mr. Jones and Czar Nicholas II, the leader previous to Stalin tie into each other. There was a strike wave go on in Petrograd. Over 300,000 people went through economic crisis. Factories had a lack of fuel and there were power cuts. The railways were collapsing and there was no meat, and a shortage of flour. Hunger spread through the country. The bourgeois liberals of the â€Å"Progressive Bloc† pleaded with Tsar Nicholas for reform trying to frighten him with revolution. That revolution broke into the February Revolution. Farmer Jones came home drunk one night and didn’t feed the animals making it worse than it already was as they were already starving. The animals got the image of the revolution from Old Major in their heads and attacked. They succeeded and won the battle against Mr. Jones as they drove him off the farm. The animals were now free to do what ever they wanted and needed to pick a leader. Out of all of the animals the pigs were considered to be the most brilliant. The two pigs that stood out the most were Napoleon and Snowball. Napoleon is not a good speaker, but he can assert himself. Snowball is a better speaker because he has a lot of ideas. These two pigs did not get along, much like Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. The Russian leaders fought for power and Stalin achieved sole power and Trotsky was exiled. Trotsky escaped Stalin’s dilemmas. Stalin hated his opponent so much that he caused his name to be written simply â€Å"Judas Trotsky.† Stalin stole many of Trotsky’s ideas and methods. Eventually Trotsky was expelled from Russia. In the same manner, Snowball and Napoleon always argued over ideas. Napoleon was already power hungry and had a plan to get rid of Snowball after the rebellion. In the middle of this all, Snowball was planning out to build a windmill for power to energize the farm. Napoleon then directed the dogs he raised since they were puppies on Snowball and chased him off the farm. Napoleon eliminated his only enemy and was free to control the farm.